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New Rising, the Pune franchise, which had the first go in the Indian Premier League 'Player draft' in Mumbai on Tuesday, said they were firm on India's limited-overs' team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni as their marquee signing and got what they wanted.
Speaking at the media conference that followed the draft, Pune spokesperson Subrato Talukdar said, “We wanted Dhoni as we are a new franchise and want to build our brand and who better than Dhoni. He was an automatic choice. We have got the players we wanted as per our plan.”
It reasserts Dhoni’s worth, putting to rest several questions regarding his age and dipping form.
Intex Technologies, who invested in the Rajkot franchise, picked Suresh Raina as the first choice while Saurashtra lad Ravindra Jadeja was the second buy.
While both franchises denied having a pre-draft agreement on the players, Keshav Bansal, the co-owner of Rajkot, accepted that he 'assumed' Dhoni would be bought by the rival group.
“We had assumed that Pune will buy Dhoni, so we had zeroed on Raina as our top player.
“Rajkot is a high-scoring venue and our strategy was to buy players who can suit the conditions,” he said.
However, with Rajkot opting for Raina, Pune had an option of buying Jadeja, who is an all-rounder, for their second pick. Instead, they went for Rahane, who has been criticised by Dhoni for his 'failure to rotate the strike' in the shorter format of the game.
"We were targeting eight players and got players of our priority. India cricketers Manoj Tiwari and Ashok Dinda, who play for our company, were consulted," Talukdar explained.
Dhoni and Raina will play for opposing teams for the first time in the IPL.
Selecting five players each, both franchises utilised Rs 39 crore from their available kitty and are left with Rs 27 crore to splurge at the Player auction on February 6, 2016.
Raina expressed his feelings on joining the new Rajkot team.
“Excited to play for the beautiful vibrant city - Rajkot in @IPL. Looking forward to have new teammates and support from the people of Gujarat,” the southpaw’s posted on Twitter.
There is a provision to safeguard the interests of the ten players bought in Tuesday's draft.
"The salary of players as per their contract with their former teams will be protected. The upper limit will be deducted from the total purse of Rs 66 crore. All will be put up on the website," IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla said.
The players picked in the draft:
Pune: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin, Steven Smith and Faf du Plessis.
Rajkot: Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Brendon McCullum, James Faulkner and Dwayne Bravo.
Image: Suresh Raina (left) with Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni. Both players will play in different IPL teams for the first time.
Photograph: BCCI